Motor Racing: Ferrari on cruise control

Michael Schumacher is on pole again, but he may not have things all his own way during the Bahrain Grand Prix today

Having already produced something exotic and unfamiliar in terms of the setting, Formula One could well be about to do something really surprising in Bahrain today and stage a grand prix worthy of the name.

That Michael Schumacher will start from pole position, however, and a comfortable one, suggests it might be the stunning circuit architecture and desert scenery rather than any action at the sharp end of the race which will attract the most interest. When the reigning world champion locked a wheel of his Ferrari in the first corner of his qualifying lap, it looked as though he had opened the front row to BMW Williams drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher, yet a breathtakingly fast final sector saw the German set a time that proved almost half a second faster than either his brother or the disappointed Colombian — who made a big mistake in the final